[open-archaeology] Ethics, archaeology and open data

Tue May 11 22:51:13 UTC 2010

Il giorno mar, 11/05/2010 alle 18.36 +0100, Anthony Beck ha scritto:

Hi Anthony,
and thanks for resurrecting the discussion here (I've been *very* busy).

> It looks like we've got enough interest to move this forward and that
> there is commonality with lines of thought in ADS, JISC, EDINA is
> really encouraging. So should we meet up to discuss things?  

Yes, yes, and yes. Smart people with good ideas working in key
institutions is really the way to go.

It's very clear to me (from outside) that the UK is the place where
innovation is happening in the open data field. So having an open
archaeology movement that is strong and motivated in the UK sounds like
an important step in "global" awareness (Eric, as we discussed in
Granada I completely agree with everything you say about indigenous
culture - and I believe it should apply for every archaeological
research, including those that are apparently out of the scope of such
issues - so "global" could really mean "for us Western archaeologists",
but that's a start).

I'd like to contribute to this interesting discussion with two points
(partly raised by Philip):
     1. the enormous variability from country to country
     2. the enormous variability in archaeological data

It's no mystery that law frameworks are completely different between
English-speaking countries and continental Europe (again, I'm
deliberately limiting to places I know better). This difference
basically means that what applies for the UK could not apply at all for
Spain, Italy or Greece (or just PIGS for the economists among us).
Furthermore, more differences derive from the relationships between
public and private bodies, academia and commercial archaeology, national
and regional laws, and who knows how many other factors we deal with.
The point is that IT'S FINE and it's not a problem: we can start by
advocating, exploring and doing open archaeology in a single country
(that sounds so much like Stalin vs Trockj...), as only the general
principles will be "exportable". This means also that we need more
people involved: if 5 or 6 people are needed to set up a meeting in the
UK, we need more and more people from all the countries that are
apparently not represented here. We should just be doing "divide et
impera". I started http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/archaeology/nationalstandards
this page a few months ago, feel free to use it as a starting point or
change it as you need.

The distinction made by Philip between copyright and access to public
data applies 100% for Italy, too. I can say that there's a growing group
of people working on the copyright side of the story in Italian
archaeology, but for access to public data we're really behind. If some
actors (e.g. universities, large companies) will decide to change their
role, exciting things may happen - there's no law against this, just
(bad) habits.

> For some reason I feel I'm getting ahead of myself, but the momentum
> is good. My only other thoughts are: if this is a UK meeting I assume
> we'll try and put everything into an international arena.

As I said above, do it. Let's try to keep it international, but don't
limit your chances.

As for my second point, I would like to recall something obvious. There
is much more archaeological data than excavation databases and "dots on
a map". There are for example tons of artifacts that are safely stored
in museums, and could be made available at zero risk.

There are thousands of excavations that were performed before the
digital revolution, and for some regions and periods these
archaeological sites are nevertheless still a fundamental point of
reference for scholars, students, amateurs. Why can't we put everything
on the web? Why can't we make all 19th century excavation reports from
Pompei open?

Archaeometric data won't do any harm, but they will be more than useful
to anyone doing serious research in the field of provenance studies,
residue analysis, and so many more. I could go on with examples for
hours, but I think you got the idea.

To sum up, it doesn't seem good to limit the concept of "archaeological
data" to those kinds of data that are more easily identified as
"dangerous" by stakeholders. Taking a broader perspective we will enable
contacts with other disciplines and open government initiatives.

Finally, drafting a document with a few statements that we all share is
in the TODO list since January, and this looks like the best moment to
do it.

I'll try to forward the relevant points of this discussion to some
interested friends from Italy, please spread the word.

Ciao,
steko

-- 
Stefano Costa

Coordinator, Working Group on Open Data in Archaeology
http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/archaeology
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org · http://opendefinition.org/
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